Scarlet Lily: Home Grown Tomatoes: Food Creations

A Recipe for Design

Home Grown Tomatoes is a weekly Vegan/Vegetarian column written by Giovanina Bucci

I'm cheating this week because I just returned home from a girls weekend in New Jersey with my dearest girlfriends - and yes, we did go to the Jersey Shore and take in every last bit of the "culture" that exists there. A whole lot of hair gel and whole little bit of clothing. Period. You should go see for yourself someday because it's like being surrounded by thousands of Snooki's (for those of you who tune into the TV show, the Jersey Shore) The weekend was busy, fun, exhausting, and wonderful and now I'm back to face reality once again - maybe not with the clearest head in the world, I think it's going to take a few days to recover!

But I thought I'd share this fun design idea that does at least involve food! All of the pictures that I've posted today, I've taken over time in my quest to learn how to take bad ass food pictures (which I'm still trying to figure out how to do)! My point of posting all of the various pictures here is to share with you a design idea that I implemented in my own kitchen. I took my six favorite food pictures and got them blown up to an 8x10 size. I went to a craft store and bought six burnt orange frames and hung the pictures in my kitchen. And they are so bright, colorful and really tie the kitchen together nicely. I personally think that some of the pictures posted would make great kitchen hangings and will hopefully inspire you to decorate. Food offers so many great colors and textures and I think this is a really inexpensive and fun way to bring some life into your kitchen.

I don't know very much about food photography but there are a few things that I have learned:

Avoid using a flash when taking food pictures.

Try to take your pictures in natural lighting.

Play around with the macro setting on your camera.

Composition can be really fun to play with and can make a huge difference in your outcome.

Always have your camera in the kitchen...at least it inspires me to make my presentation extra detailed.

So sift through and maybe you'll get some ideas for sprucing up your own kitchen! I'll certainly be back next week with an actual recipe, but in lieu of not having one for you this week, I figured this might be a fun idea for you to consider trying!